Mars Orbiter raised further successfully

The second of the six orbit raising manouevres for the Mars Orbiter was completed successfully early Friday, the Indian space agency said.

According to Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO), the second orbit raising manouevre that started 2.18 a.m. Friday has been successfully completed.

The on-board motor of Mars Orbiter was fired for 570.6 seconds taking up the Mars Orbiter to 40,186 km apogee (farthest point to the Earth) from the earlier levels of 28,814 km.

On Thursday, ISRO completed the first orbit raising activity for Mars Orbiter. The commands for the activity are issued from Spacecraft Control Centre (SCC) at ISRO Telemetry, Tracking and Command Network (ISTRAC) in Bangalore.

ISRO launched the Mars Orbiter in earth orbit Tuesday. The spacecraft was placed at an elliptical earth orbit with a perigee of 248.4 km and an apogee of 23,550 km, inclined at an angle of 19.27 degrees to the equator.

The 1,340-kg Mars Orbiter, developed by ISRO at an outlay of around Rs.150 crore, carries 852 kg of fuel on-board. Around 360 kg fuel was likely to be expended on the six orbit raising activities.

During the final orbit raising activity, the Orbiter will be put on Mars Transfer Trajectory Dec 1.

According to ISRO, the Mars Orbiter will travel to the vicinity of the Red Planet in September 2014 after 300 days of deep space voyage.

When the Orbiter is near Mars, the spacecraft's motors will be fired again but in reverse direction to slow it down and let it captured by Martian gravity into an orbit around it, ISRO said.

According to the Indian space agency, all the systems of the Orbiter are functioning normally.